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​Samsung crams 32TB SSD into a 2.5-inch drive, aims for 100TB by 2020

Samsung has unveiled its fourth-generation V-NAND technology and several SSDs made possible by the new tech.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer
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Samsung plans to ship a high-performance, ultra-low latency1TB Z-SSD this year, with 2TB and 4TB versions due next year.

Image: Samsung

Samsung has unveiled its 32TB SSD in a 2.5-inch form factor for the enterprise, and thinks it can attain 100TB capacity within the next four years.

The Korean company's 32TB Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) SSD doubles the capacity of its PM1633a, which was billed by Samsung last year as the world's largest SSD.

It held the crown until this week when Seagate showed off its gigantic 60TB SSD in a 3.5-inch form factor, although Seagate hasn't confirmed whether it will be commercially available.

Vendors are cramming more capacity into SSDs to support growing demand for high-performance computing and analytics in the datacenter.

Samsung expects its new 32TB SSD to be produced in 2017, setting the stage for a threefold increase by 2020 when Samsung plans to be making SSDs with a 100TB capacity. The 32TB SSD consists of 32 1TB packages, each of which contains 512 V-NAND chips stacked in 16 layers.

The 32TB SSD uses Samsung's fourth-generation 3D V-NAND flash memory, which stacks 64 layers of cell arrays, offering a boost on its previous generation 48-layer V-NAND. The new flash memory features a 64GB chip with an IO speed of 800Mbps.

Samsung says it will begin mass-producing its fourth-generation V-NAND flash-memory products in the fourth quarter, which should help portable-device manufacturers.

The Korean company also revealed a 1TB ball grid array design SSD, which at 1g in weight, is aimed at compact laptops, tablets, and convertible devices. The package delivers sequential read speeds of 1,500MBps and write speeds of 900MBps.

According to AnandTech, Samsung also plans to ship a 1TB Z-SSD this year as a high-performance, ultra-low latency product for the enterprise. Samsung is also planning a 2TB and 4TB Z-SSD for next year.

Samsung describes Z-SSD as sharing the "fundamental structure of V-NAND" with a "unique circuit design and controller" that offers "four times faster latency and 1.6 times better sequential reading than the Samsung PM963 NVMe SSD".

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